HI
even if the family is or is partly english /irish or whatever. William was married there and lived there and he is said to have been born there. If he was not then there ought to be a record in England and that also cannot be found. If he was born in Ireland there should be an Irish record somewhere.
one of Mark Gilbert's descendants has contacted me re Harriet Ann Holmes. Still waiting on that outcome.
Essnell.
I hope you find something from that descendant.
As you know the quality and quantity of Irish records varies and certainly access to Roman Catholic Records has improved very much in recent years. However, your ancestors were not R.C.
I don’t quite understand what you mean about being up against all the divisions and Clogheen ‘wriggling in and out’ etc so you might have looked here already.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01lli/You will see that Clogheen shows no information except to look at Shanrahan. That parish shows some records are available on RootsIreland, a subscription site, although you can have a one day subscription, it seems.
http://www.rootsireland.ieI have looked at RI search for William Holmes, South Tipperary. None show for a birth of 1845 +/- 5 yrs but one shows 1855/1860. There is no indication re parish or any other details without payment so who knows!
As aghadowey says, there may be no record at all.